Pakistan bans five athletes for doping offence

Karachi: Taking strong exception against the use banned substances in sports, Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) has imposed a two-year ban on five athletes for failing dope tests in recent months.

The anti-doping committee of the PSB which met under the chairmanship of director-general, Ameer Hamza Gillani handed out the bans to three national cyclists and two body builders.

"The cyclists include Noor Alam, Dilsher Ali and Zahid Gulfam whose dope tests were taken during the recent National Cycling Championship while the body builders are Mohammad Imran Qureshi and Javed Ali who failed dope tests conducted before Asian Beach Games," a PSB official said.

He said all the five athletes have the right to appeal against their bans.

"The samples of these athletes were sent to an IOC accredited laboratory in India and we got the results few days back. The results of these five athletes were unfortunately positive," he said.

The Pakistan Athletics Federation (PAF) and the PSB anti-doping committee have also banned nine track and field athletes for two years over doping offences last August under its new stricter anti-doping policy.

The athletes have tested positive for banned steroids at the National Athletic Championships held in July last year.